Three cool chords

Lango-Django

I play in a trio with a clarinet/sax and upright bass. We mostly play 20's and 30's music but the other two guys like to play a bit of modern jazz, so they requested a chart for a bebop standard "A Night in Tunisia".

I'm not much of a bebopper… as Eddie Condon once said, "These guys flat their fifths, we drink ours!"

But anyway I sat down to work on this tune and stumbled upon some fun chords on the four bottom strings that I'd never played before.

So I thought I'd share them with you.


Em7b5 6757xx

A7b5 5656xx

Bm7b5 (aka Dm6/9) 787700


They're actually pretty easy to finger since these are shapes that are often found on the top four or middle four strings, just moved down to the bottom four strings.

They sound good played as chords or single notes. For the Dm6 inversion don't really need the top two open strings but I think they sound cool.

Will

wim

In the spirit of your bass note chords, you can try doing the Eb7 and D- from the tune with these voicings :

[11 10 11 10 x x] [10 8 10 9 x x]

It's the sixth string version of the old Eb9 & D-9 thing, more familiar with the bass note on the A string e.g. [x6566x] [x5355x]. They fall under the fingers nicely on the 6th-string version and have a "beefier" sound due to the thicker strings even though it's note-for-note equivalent.

I sometimes use these as substitutions in Topsy , when the old "hit the road jack" kind of descending chords sounds a bit tired on the ears after a while

Appel

I dream of playing in a trio with clarinet/sax and upright bass. Maybe someday I'll find some of those .... luuuu-cky

And I love chords on the lower 4 string set - they are a test of any guitar but if the guitar is good, those chords are great - and funnily enough I was playing with two of those same voicings just last night. If you don't mind, I'll throw in a couple of runs that occurred to me when I saw your fine post.

6757xx - Em7b5
6756xx - A7b9 (Bb dim)
5535xx - Dm7
5534xx - Dm6
3433xx - Gm7b5
3423xx - C7b9 (Bb dim)
4x356x - Fm/Ab; or,
13313x - Fm6 is nice, too, but I find it harder to grab after all that.

5656xx - A7b5; this one leads nicely into
5536xx - Dmaj7/A

787700 - Bm7b5 (aka Dm6/9); I like that, I never thought to use the open strings on this voicing. It leads well into an Am9, or we can keep going to a pretty Cmaj7:

787700 - Bm7b5
786700 - E7b9
5x5500 - Am9
5x4500 - Am9 add 6
5x3500 - Dm13
3x3400 - G7add6 (I don't like calling it a "G13" without a 9th in there somewhere)
x32400 - Cmaj7

All four inversions of the "drop two" minor 7 flat 5 are nice on that string set, and they lead beautifully into diminished or dominant 7 flat 9 sounds:

7877xx - Bm7b5, to
7876xx - E7b9

10,12,9,10,xx - Bm7b5, first inversion (or just "Bm7b5/D"), to
10,11,9,10,xx - E7b9, then maybe to a first inversion Am,
8x79xx

1202xx - Bm7b5, second inversion ("Bm7b5/F"), to
1201xx - E7b9, to
0322xx - Am in second inversion

5534xx - Bm7b9, third inversion ("Bm7b5/A"), to
4534xx - E7b9, to
5x455x - Am6

Anyway. Fun stuff.

Appel

... and at the risk of running on a bit long ...

Maybe if you try the inversions of the minor 7 flat five, and remember that the minor 7 flat five is often the "ii" in a minor ii-V-i progression, you'll notice that only one note in the m7b5 chord changes to give the diminished or V7b9 sound.

The note in the m7b5 that changes is the seventh of that chord, and it drops a half step to become the third of the V chord, which then rises a half step to become the tonic of the i minor.

This all seems like a lot of chord tones and numbers to sort out, but actually it helps me to remember how to voice-lead the chords on the fly if I just notice that whatever note in the m7b5 chord is its seventh degree is also the root of the minor key, and that that note will be the one around which the ii-V-i cadence will resolve.

It's easy to see in this one:

1202xx - Bm7b5, second inversion ("Bm7b5/F"), to
1201xx - E7b9, to
0322xx - Am in second inversion

In the first chord, the highest note is A; when the progression moves from ii to V, that note drops a half step, and when the progression moves to i, it rises again.

It seems like a lot of hard work to get there, but I find noticing things like this help me to remember the voicings and where they lead - once you see it, it's a nice trick to help think through them more quickly. Ok that's enough trouble and mess out of me for one night.

opus20000

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